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cMWETU JO ALISHSAIH 
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DELIVERED BY 


JUDGE W. A. FALCONER 
OF FORT SMITH 


TO THE 


GRADUATING CLASS of SUBIACO COLLEGE 
SUBIACO, ARK. 


JUNE FIFTEENTH, NINETEEN-NINETEEN 


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Baccalaureate Address 


Delivered by Judge W. A. Falconer 
of Fort Smith 


Lecky in his “Map of Life” observes a 
that while the Catholic Church has * 


never adopted the extreme view of 
the Quakers that all participation in 
law courts is unchristian, yet that it 
seems to have instinctively recognized 
some incompatibility between the pro- 
fession of a lawyer and the character 
of a saint, and Renan notices the 
significant fact that the only lawyer 
who has found a place in Catholic 
hagiology was St. Yves of Brittany 
at whose festival the worshippers 
were wont to sing: 


“He was a lawyer and not a thief; 
Wonderous thing—almost beyond 
belief!’ 


In view of these alleged facts it 
might be difficult to account for the 
presence here today of a lawyer—and 
2 Protestant lawyer at that—to de- 
liver the baccalaureate address to a 
class of young men who are candi- 
dates for the Catholic priesthood, and 
graduates of a college conducted by 
one of the oldest and most honored 
orders of the Catholic Church. 


“I hope you will pardon the sugges- 
tion that even though no other lawyer 
has been found worthy to bear St. Yves 
company on the calendar of Saints, 
yet the reputation of my profession 
has so improved since his day as to 
become almost (if not quite) respec- 
table and it may be that even the en- 
tire body of lawyers ig approaching 
the saintly character in a sort of 
parabolic curve, ever drawing nearer 
to that point which it is never destnied 
to attain. 

Certain it is that my learned and 
much respected friend, the Prior of 
this Abbey, who is responsible for my 
being here, must have persuaded him- 
self that I, at least, am “advocatus et 
“non latro” and I am also certain that 


he did not think that my being the 
one and not the other was “res miran- 
da populo.” 

The surprising thing to me, as it 
doubtless is to you, is that, with an 
unlimited latitude of choice, he has 
passed by all the academic doctors and 
prominent divines and chosen me for 
a task which I feel myself so inad- 
equately fitted to perform. But 
whatever the cause which brings me 
here, I am very grateful for the signal 
honor of being permitted to speak on 
the invitation of this splendid institu- 
tion, to these young men who, having 
completed their courses of study and 
won the distinctions conferred for 
persistent and successful application, 
are now about to take upon them- 
selves the duties, responsibilities and 
larger opportunities of life. 

This Abbey which has been the 
scene of their labors,—in the dignity, 
strength and permanence of its build- 
ings, in the beauty of its surround- 
ings, in the sweet calm, refining cul- 
ture and deep spirituality which per- 
vade it,—will, while memory lasts, 
awaken inspiring thoughts and pleas- 
ant emotions in all who, like these 
young men, have lived for years with- 
in its walls. Its very name carries us 
back in fancy over the long and 


winding tracks of history for nearly 
1500 years, until we stand with the 


benign founder of the Order of Bt. 
Benedict on that lovely spot Sub La- 
quum, (Beneath the Lake), where cen- 
turies before Nero had a summer 
villa and held his orgies of lust and 
crime, where men paid divine honors 
to their heathen gods and even to 
living men,—whence it may be, Nero 
issued the orders that hurried St. 
Paul from the Mammertine prison 
along the Ostian road to meet a 
martyr’s death beyond the walls of 





Rome—there, where once _ vice 
flourished and Jupiter and Nero were 
worshipped, St. Benedict raised a tem- 
ple to the “one God, the Father .Al- 
mighty,’ and to “Jesus Christ Mis 
only Son, Our Lord.” 

All that Pythagoras in Sout/\ern 
Italy was to the pagan world 500 
years before Christ, St. Beneditt in 
Northern Italy, was (and mor.) to 
the Christian world 500 years after 
Christ. 

The former also had his monristery 
and his brotherhood; taught his dis- 
ciples temperance in meat and {rink; 
enforced daily meditations and daily 
exercise of mind and body; gave in- 
structions in improved methods of 
industry and led his votaries in the 
ways of a virtuous life. But as time 
went on his followers, led by the de- 
sire of worldly gain, converted a reli- 
gious order into a political club and 
brought their brotherhood to an in- 
glorious end. But St. Benedict, with 
none but spiritual aims in view, built 
his order upon the impregnable rock 
of Christ, and his disciples, render- 
ing to Caesar the things that are 
Caesar’s and to God the things that 
are God’s, have consistently kept their 
faith and practices free from political 
machinations, and so long as they 
live by the rule of their founder will 
endure as long as time endures. 

From Subiaco, the birthplace of the 
Order, we may go with St. Benedict 
to Monte Cassino, where it reached 
its full stature and development. 
About 580 to 590, Monte Cassino was 
sacked by the Lombards, the com- 
munity went to Rome and was estab- 
lished in a monastery attached to the 
Lateran Basilica. It is now common- 
ly recognized by scholars that, when 
Gregory the Great became a monk, 


and turned his palace on the Coelian’ 


Hill into a monastery, the monastic 
life there carried out was fundamen- 
tally based on the Benedictine Rule 
(Dudden’s Gregory the Great 1,608.) 
From this monastery went forth St. 
Augustine and his companions on 


their mission to England in 596, car- 


rying their monachism with them; 
thus England was the first country 
out of Italy in which Benedictine life 
was established. ‘The tendency of 
modern historical scholarship justifies 
the maintenance of the tradition that 
St. Augustine and his forty compan- 
ions were the first great Benedictine 
apostles and missionaries. After their 
conversion of England it was Eng- 
lish Benedictines who evangelized 
Germany and founded and organized 
the German Church. The conversion 
of the Teutonic races may properly 
be called the work of the Benedictines. 
During the Eighth Century the Order 
of St. Benedict became, (outside of 
Ireland and purely Celtic lands), the 
only rule and form of monastic life 
throughout Western Europe and so 
completely so that Charlemagne once 
asked if there ever had been any other 
monastic rule. 

These monasteries became the cen- 
ters of civilizing influences in edu- 
cating the youth, in instructing whole 
nations in agriculture, farming, in the 
arts and trades and in a temperate, 
well-ordered, Christian life. 

In these and other monasteries 
were the only places of security and 
rest in Western Europe for many cen- 
turies and the only places where let- 
ters could in any measure be culti- 
vated. Here the priceless MSS. of 
Greek and Latin antiquity were pre- 
served and the whole world of scholar- 
ship, whether Jew, Protestant, or 
Catholic, owes to them a debt of grati- 
tude which I, as a Protestant, am glad 
to publicly acknowledge. ' 

I desire especially to declare my ad- 
miration for the Order of: St. Bene- 
dict. It appeals to me with its sanity, 
its humanity, its unselfish service 
for mankind, its freedom from ex- 
treme asceticism and bodily abase- 
ment. While its members are with- 
drawn from the world and from any 
commercial and worldly pursuits, and 
have renounced all individual owner- 
ship in the work of their own hands 
and brain, yet they sympathize with 
and direct others whose chief spur of 


effort is the acquisition of property 
for their families and themselves. 
The Benedictine seems to me to say, 
with Terence, in his Heautontimoru- 
menus “Homo sum: humani nihil a 
me alienum puto.” (“I am a man and 
nothing that pertains to man is indif- 
ferent to me.’’) , 

What mighty changes in human in- 
stitutions this Order has seen while 
it has gone on itself unchanged, en- 
joying a perpetual youth. It saw 
the birth of Mohammedanism and its 
fanatic followers, carrying the Koran 
in one hand and the sword in the 
other, spread over the East, gain a 
foothold in the West, then recede and 
begin its inevitable and hoped-for fall. 
It saw the Roman Empire break to 
Pieces and form other empires, some 
of which flourished for a time and 
then perished. It saw the English 
heptarchy united into one kingdom. 
It was present when Charlemange as- 
sumed his imperial crown and wit- 
‘messed the triumph of William the 
Conqueror. 

It was over 900 years old when Co- 
lumbus discovered this continent and 
planted the cross in a new world, 
where wandering tribes of savage 
men have given place in this country 
to a compact and civilized republic 
of one hundred million souls. It lived 
through the Reformation and the 
Thirty Years War. It saw the meteoric 
rise and sudden collapse of Napoleonic 
power. It looked on while the little 
Duchy of Brandenburg expanded into 
the kingdom of Prussia and then into 
the German Empire, and emerged 
from the World War conquered, and, 
we hope, chastened, with depleted re- 
sources and her borders contracted 
and her colonies lost. 

Through all these centuries of hu- 
man chance and change the Order of 
St. Benedict has persisted and 
flourished, constant in its worship of 
God and unselfish service to man- 
kind. 

Under the inspiring influence of 
this Order you young men of this 
graduating class have received your 


moral and intellectual food; have 
made of your. minds storehouses of 
learning upon which you can draw 
in every situation of life—storehouses 
not only of daily bread for mind and 
soul but also storehouses of seed from 
which to plant other and larger crops 
in every field of human _ thought. 
Under its direction you have com- 
pleted a thorough and well-rounded 
collegiate course,—mastered the re- 
quirements in languages, letters, in 
sciences and arts, and received the 
parchment evidences of your pro- 
ficiency. You have learned to think 
and to reason; you have acquired 
habits of study and power of con- 
centration. You have made your 
minds subject to your wills and know 
how to gather your wandering 
thoughts and direct them upon a given 
task. You have each embarked upon 
the sea of knowledge, in a staunch 
craft, well built and with sails set, 
and have made one short and prosper- 
ous voyage. You may roam that 
boundless sea at will and touch at any 
port, and find a rich cargo wherever 
you may anchor. You have had great 
opportunities and your responsibili- 
ties are correspondingly great. You 
have chosen a life of service—service 
of God and service of your fellow 
man, and this is a far higher pur- 
pose than the mere quest of hap- 
piness for one’s self. Moreover, as it 
has been well said, happiness is most 
likely to be attained when it is not 
the direct object of pursuit. Aside 
from any question of right or wrong a 
prime requisite of a happy life is that 
it should be a full and busy one, di- 
rected to the attainment of aims out- 
side ourselves. Nearly every man, 
who adopts a profession or calling, 
finds in his chosen work employment 
for most of his time not given up to 
eating and sleeping and recreation. 
Eat we must and sleep we must and 
recreation we should have—all in 
moderation—if we are to keep our 
spirits fresh and our bodies strong. 
But it is that small residuum of time 
left from the main business of life 


of which so much can be made and 
from which so much profit and pleas- 
ure can be derived. 

The trouble with most of us is not 
so much lack of time as waste of time 
and there would be no wasted time if 
we each would resolve upon and fol- 
low some settled plan for the em- 
ployment of the few moments daily 
that otherwise would go in aimless 
dreaming or dawdling or in unprofit- 
able or harmful reading. 

Now, as a learned French writer 
(Tocqueville) has said: “La vie n’est 
pas un plaisir ni une douleur, mais 
une affaire grave dont nous sommes 
charges, et qu’il faut conduire et 
terminer a notre honneur.’”* Is ours 
is to be a life of service—as every 
life should in great measure be—then 
time is the trust fund which we are to 
use as we would a ward’s money—not 
wasting or frittering it away, but 
keeping the principal intact and earn- 
ing a constant return. You are all 
familiar with the rules which Cicero 
lays down for old age and which are 
equally applicable to youth as to old 
age: 

“Habenda ratio valetudinis; uten- 
dum exercitationibus modicis; tantum 
cibi et potionis adhibendum, ut re- 
ficlantur vires, non opprimantur—Nec 
vero corpori solum subveniendum est, 
sed menti atque animo multo magis; 
nam haec quoque, nisi tanquam lumini 
oleum instilles, extinguuntur senec- 
tute; et corpora quidem exercitat- 
ionum defatigatione ingravescunt 
animi autem exercendo levantur.”+ 

The trouble with most men is that 
they feel that their education is com- 
pleted when they leave college, where- 
as, in fact, it is only well begun. A 
striking example of a man who not 
only kept up his studies after leaving 


college, but really extended his know- 
ledge of them was Lord Macaulay, 
After gaining a great name in Parlia- 
ment as one of the best orators and 
debaters of his day, and in the world 
of letters, as one of its most brilliant 
writers, he was sent to India, at the 
age of 34, as a member of the Su- 
preme Council. His duties there were 
varied and exacting. Most men would 
have had time for nothing else, but 
Macaulay found time for something 
outside the governing of an Empire. 

Writing from Calcutta in February 
1835 to his friend, Ellis, then in Lon- 
don, also a lover of the classics and 
an eminent lawyer, Macaulay says: 

“Tl have gone back to Greek liter- 
ature with a passion quite astonish- 
ing to myself. I have never felt any- 
thing like it. I was enraptured with 
Italian the six months which I gave 
up to it; and I was little less pleased 
with Spanish. But when I went back 
to Greek, I felt as if I had never 
known before what intellectual enjoy- 
ment was. 

“I think myself very fortunate in 
having been able to return to these 
great masters while still in the full 
vigor of life and when my taste and 
judgment are mature. Most people 
read all the Greek they ever read be- 
fore they are five and twenty. They 
never find time for such studies after- 
wards until they are in the decline 
of life, and then their knowledge of 
the language is in a great measure 
lost and cannot easily be recovered. 
Accordingly almost all the ideas that 
people have of Greek literature are 
ideas formed while they are still very 
young. A young man, whatever his 
genius may be, is no judge of such a 
writer as Thucydides. I had no high 
opinion of him ten years ago. I have 


‘*“7 ife is not pleasure and not pain, but a serious business with which we must 


conduct and finish to our honor.” 


“We should adopt a regimen of health; employ moderate exercise and take just 
enough of food and drink to restore our strength and not to burden it. Nor,. 
indeed, are we to give our attention solely to the body; much greater care is 
due the mind and soul; for they, too, like lamps, grow dim with time unless we 
keep them supplied with oil. Moreover exercise causes the body to grow heavy 
with fatigue, but intellectual activity gives buoyancy to the mind.” 


now been reading him with a mind 
accustomed to historical researches 
and to political affairs and I am as- 
tonished at my own former blindness 
and his greatness. I could not bear 
Euripides at college. I now read my 
recantation. He has faults undoubted- 
ly. But what a poet! The “Medea,” 
the “Alcestis,” the “Troades,” the 
“Bacchae,” are alone sufficient to 
place him in the first rank.” 

Writing to this same congenial 
spirit in December, 1835, (Trevelyan’s 
Life of M., 1, 388) he says: 

“During the last thirteen months I 
have read Aeschylus twice; Sophocles 
twice; Euripides once; Pindar twice; 
Callimachus, Appollonius Rhodius, 
Quintus Colaber, Theocritus twice; 
Herodiotus, Thucydides, almost all 
Xenophon’s works; also all Plato; 
Aristotle’s ‘Politics,’ and a good deal 
of his ‘Organon,’ besides diping else- 
where in him; the whole of Plutarch’s 
‘Lives,’ about half of Lucian, two or 
three books of Athenaeus; Plantus 
twice; Terence twice; Lucretius twice; 
Catullus Tibulus; Propertius; Lucan, 
Statius, Silius Italicus; Livy; Veller- 
ius Paterculus; Sallust; Caesar, and 
lastly, Cicero.” 

In another letter (page 392) he 
says: 

“My mornings from five to nine are 
quite my own. I still give them to 
- ancient literature. I got into a way 
last year of reading a Greek play 
every Sunday.” On November 26th, 
1836, (page 397) in writing to Napier 
of the “Edinburgh Review,” he speaks 
of his intention of using the four 
months voyage then required to go 
from India to England “in mastering 
the German language.” He thereupon 
orders sent to him from England for 
his purpose “the best grammar and 
the best dictionary that can be pro- 
cured; a German Bible, Schiller’s 
Works, Goethe’s Works and Niebuhr’s 
History, both in the original and in 
translation. My way,” he says, “of 
learning a language is always to be- 
gin with the Bible which I can read 
without a dictionary. After a few 


days passed in this way, I am master 
of all the common particles and the 
common rules of syntax and a pretty 
large vocabulary. Then I fall on some 
good classical work. It was in this 
way that I learned both Spanish and 
Portuguese and I shall try the same 
course with German.” 

Macaulay, of course, was a genius, 

with a prodidgious memory and few 
can hope to rival him, but all may to 
the extent of their opportunity and 
ability profit by his example. To 
show what value he placed on even a 
few moments every day devoted to 
one subjeet, he urged his busy lawyer 
friend to translate Herodotus: “You 
would do it excellently and a transla- 
tion of Herodotus, well executed, 
would rank with original composition. 
A quarter of an hour a day would 
finish the work in five years. The 
notes might be made the most amus- 
ing in the world” 
In urging the wise employment of 
time I would urge against making 
self-culture the chief aim of life. It 
would be a selfish thing to devote all 
one’s spare time to one’s own pleas- 
ure, whether intellectual or physical. 
It is a generous thing to give some 
portion of that leisure to other peo- 
ple—in social intercourse, in acts of 
courtesy and kindness—and this we 
should all do for our own moral health 
as well as for the good of other peo- 
ple. 

Cultivating a spirit of thoughtful- 
ness for others is a splendid exercise 
and like mercy— 


“Tt droppeth as the gentle rain from 
heaven 

Upon the place beneath; it is twice 
bless’d; 

It blesseth him that gives, and him 
that takes; 

’'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it 
becomes 

The throned monarch better than 
his crown.” 


Those who go into the Christian 
ministry dedicate the bulk of their 
time to the service of God and of man 


and have but a little remnant that 
can be devoted to self. Those who 
go into the business of money getting 
have devoted their lives for the most 
part to selfish ends and have, of ne- 
cessity, only a fragment of time to 
give to spiritual and _ intellectual 
things, or to unselfish ends. 

A man whether priest or merchant, 
will devote, say, ninety per cent of his 
time to his chosen calling, including 
the direct and incidental labors it en- 
tails, and including sleeping, eating, 
recreation and the necessary exercise; 
and will have, say ten per cent of his 
time—it may be two hours, it may be 
less, which he can spend as he chooses. 

If priest or merchant uses his ten 


per cent of disposable time as he did 


the bulk of his ninety per cent he is a 
mere drudge—life is a tread-mill and 
his mind goes round and round the 
same narrow circle. In the case of 
the priest, his spirituality will lack 
humanity, and in the case of the mer- 
chant his humanity will lack spirit- 
uality. After ninety per cent of the 
day has been spent as it must be 
spent without your having very much 
choice as to how it must be spent—for 
the demands of your particular calling 
determine that—I do not mean that 
the remaining ten per cent should be 
devoted entirely to your own self- 
culture—that might and _ probably 
would be very selfish. A portion of 
that little ten per cent may be claimed 
by a visit to the sick, conversation 
with a friend, or in the effort to help 
a school boy across his “pons asino- 
rum” or by some act of courtesy or 
kindness. Let me illustrate with an 
example: Mercator is on a street car 
—the rain is coming down in tor- 
rents— but he is inside and moreover 
has his raincoat and umbrella. He is 
going home from his office to devote 
20 minutes before supper to an ode of 
Horace. He looks across the car and 
sees Ihis 75-year-old friend, Senex, 
going home, but without coat or um- 
brella. Each lives two blocks from the 
street car and Mercator lives two 
blocks further out than Senex. Senex 


approaches his corner and rings the 
bell. Mercator rises, too, though two 
blocks short of his stop, precedes 
Senex out of the car, raises his um- 
brella, helps Senex down the steps 
and conducts him, dry and grateful, 
to his own door. 

Now one half of the time set apart 
for, Horace has been spent—or rather 
invested—in pursuing another’s hap- 
piness and comfort rather than his 
own. Mercator has gained happiness 
for himself and gained as much spirit- 
ual uplift as if he had given to Horace 
the ten minutes given to Senex. 

By all means deduct from your ten 
per cent of disposable time all the lit- 
tle acts of kindness such as that men- 
tioned and you will still have enough 
left to keep all the Hebrew, Greek 
and Latin you have, give you a 
better understanding of what you 
have already studied and carry you 
far into new fields. 

There is a wide-spread belief that 
for a man in business or in the public 
service, or in a profession, to divert 
his mind with a study of the classics, - 
the sciences, literature or the arts, 
unfits him to discharge his main pur- 
pose in life. It is thought, especially 
in this country, that a knowledge of 
the classics is evidence of a lack of 
common sense, if not of weakness of 
intellect. This is a baseless assump- 
tion and is born of ignorance. If the 
best way to secure a perfect body is 
to exercise and develop every muscle, 
why is it not equally good, if man 
is to be more than a mere brute, to 
exercise and develop every function 
of the mind? Or is Milo’s strength of 
body to be preferred to Pythagoras’ 
strength of mind? Julius Caesar was . 
deeply versed in letters and philoso- 
phy and yet’ was the greatest ruler 
and most brilliant warrior of his or | 
of any other age. Gladstone was the 
greatest statesman in England and 
knew his Homer better than most of 
his countrymen knew their Shakes- 


‘peare. Forsyth, an eminent lawyer, 


wrote the best life of Cicero that 
exists in the English tongue. Benja- 


min Franklin was a practical printer 
—a self-educated man of wide cul- 
ure,—one of the founders of this re- 
public—and was the first man to es- 
tablish the identity of lightning and 
electricity. Von Moltke, though 
versed in seven tongues, was one of 
the greatest masters of the *art of 
war. Hamilton, while engaged with 
Madison and Jay in writing the 
Federalist papers, the best treatise we 
have on the Federal constitution, was 
constantly reading his Euclid to im- 
prove his powers of reasoning. And 
today it is a scholar, a schoolmaster, 
a writer of books and a dabbler in 
philosophy, who is at the head of the 
greatest republic in the world; and 
history, I believe, will record that 
America has never produced a greater 
er wiser leader of men than this same 
lover of books, Woodrow Wilson. 


I protest against the tendency of 
the age for young men to exclude 
from their curriculum any study 
which does not have some direct bear- 
ing on the business of getting money. 
There are riches in the classics which 
are worth far more than gold. The 
greatest of the four great fathers of 
the Church acknowledged that by 
reading Cicero’s “Hortensius” his 
mind was prepared for the acceptance 
of Christianity. Besides, we should 
have some ends higher than the mere 
quest of filthy lucre and take quite 
as much pains in providing food for 
our immortal souls as we do in put- 
ting guineas in a purse for which 
there will be no pockets in our 
shrouds. 


When I left college I was a poorer 


scholar and less widely read than any 
of the graduates here today. I recall 
that as I said good bye to my old Latin 
professor in the University of Vir- 
ginia—who, by the way, had been a 
colonel in the Conferedate army—he 
said: “Keep up your Latin, Sir. Read 
Plautus.” 

I thanked him for his advice but 
what I said to myself after I got out 
of héaring was: “If I ever read any 


more Latin, my dear professor, it will 
be at the point of a gun.” I did re- 
solve, however, to keep up my reading 
of French and this resolve I have 
faithfully kept. 

A few years passed by and I was 
innocent of any attempt to renew my 
slight acquaintance with Latin, when 
chance drove me to it. A young 
friend of mine got into serious dif- 
culties with Julius Caesar in Gaul and 
called on me for help. In trying to 
make him understand and to get an 
interest I aroused my own interest. We 
read and our interest grew. We got 
Froude’s Life of Caesar and read that 
and very soon he had moved up from 
the foot of his class to the head. We 
read two or three books and when I 
had finished with him I began to rea- 
lize what a wonderful work Caesar’s 
Galic War was and I then read on by 
myself until I had gone through the 
entire seven books and the concluding 
work by Hirtius. Later, I had another 
young friend who was on bad terms 
with Aeneas and Dido and _ other 
worthies, and I read the Aeneid with 
him at night. Meantime my days 
were given up to a more or less preca- 
rious quest of a livelihood at the bar. 
Then I went into politics and became 
county judge and determined to take 
up Spanish. By eating my lunch in 
my office, I was enabled to spend an 
hour a day for some months with a 
genial Mexican friend who was en- 
gaged in the elevating pursuit of 
vending hot tamales; and I acquired 
vocabulary enough to read “El Nino 
de Bola” and a few other books in 
Spanish and to learn to say “Ca-bah- 
yo” instead of the more correct “Ca- 
bal-yo.” I even got so proficient in 
Spanish that I ate chile con carne and 
drank tobasco sauce! I regret to say 
however that after learning enough to 
read with considerable ease, I grad- 
ually dropped my Spanish until I 
fear most of it is gone, though ten 
minutes a day would have kept it up. 
My neglect, I trust none of you will 
be guilty of. A little later while em- 
ployed at least eight hours a day in 


exacting public labors, I took up 
Italian with no other aid than a gram- 
mar and a reader and an Italian Bi- 
ble and I managed to get a fair vo- 
cabulary, but I made no great pro- 
gress and did not keep the little that 
I learned. It was after I became 
Chancellor that I returned to my 
Latin and at the instance of a dear 
old uncle, who in his last illness had 
received much pleasure and inspira- 
tion from Cicero’s argumen* on the 
immortality of the soul, as set out in 
the “Cato Maior de Senectute.” I be- 
gan to write out a translation of it. 
In traveling the circuit and visiting 
eight county seats and during my 
stays at home, I would read and 
translate whenever a leisure moment 
permitted and finally completed my 
task. Then I set about annotating my 
version. All this led me on to go 
further into Cicero and as a result I 
have written translations of his “De 
Amicitia” and of his “Dream of 
Scipio.” The long forgotten admoni- 
tion to “read Plautus” came to mind, 
in proof that good counsel is never 
thrown away and I read several plays 
of Plautus, of one of which I wrote 
out a translation. I did the same with 
a book of Ovid. I have also, under 
the inspiring lead of Dr. Stocker, read 
all of Horace. Besides this, in the 
course of my Ciceronian studies, I 
read in French, “Ciceron et Ses Amis” 
and read partly in Latin and partly in 
translation, all Cicero’s letters, his 
“De Fato,” “De Republica,” “De Of- 
ficiis,’ his orations and, in fact, all 
his extant works except his “Acade- 
mics,” “Tusculan Disputations,” and 
his tretise on “Good and Evil.” 

Now I mention all this in no boast- 
ing way, for I have not read deeply 
and in the way of a true scholar, and 
I claim no title to take any rank 
among scholars, but I speak of it for 
the purpose of showing that a man, 
however engrossed he may be in busi- 
ness, may yet find time, if he will, to 
get solace and pleasure of the purest 
and most satisfying kind from the 
master minds of ancient times. 


I cannot express what a deep im- 
press, Cicero and Horace in particu- 
lar have left upon me; the first, for 
his wonderful intellectual accomplish- 
ments in old age, amid domestic sor- 
rows and the most grevious disap- 
pointments; the other, for the strong 
appeal he makes for the simple life. 
My one main purpose too, in drawing 
examples from my own experience is 
that, since I am no better equipped 
with mental endowments than the 
average man and since my life for 
the past twenty years has been even 
more than that of most men, crowded 
with care and responsibilities—there- 
fore, the little that I have done in the 
way of extending my knowledge and 
culture, can be equalled by almost 
any one, who has the will to try, and 
can be far surpassed by most of the 
undergraduates who will I trust in 
due time stand here to receive their 
academic degrees. 


This personal sketch may show you 
how to avoid some of my faults—the 
chief of which is that I have not had 
a set scheme of study, with a regular, 
though short, period every day to de- 
vote to some particular work. If you 
take my advice you will do what I 
have done and more and in a far more 
systematic way and if you do, you 
will find, not that you have more 
money, but that you have gained in- 
tellectual delights which money can 
not buy and which will enable you the 
better to arrive at that state of mind, 
spoken of by St. Paul, “I have learned 
in whatsoever state I am, therewith 
to be content.” 


And now to the members of this 
class I wish “bon voyage” as they em- 
bark on their mission in life. 


“Adieu, dear amiable youths! 

Your hearts can ne’er be wanting! 
May prudence, fortitude and truth, 
Erect your brows, undaunting! 

In ploughmen phrase ‘God send you 

speed,’ 

Daily to grow wiser! 

And may ye better reck the rede, 
Than ever did th‘ adviser.” 





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